Are Palestinian Authority governing and security institutions undergoing reform?
What is the role of Quartet envoy Tony Blair? The main problem in the security institutions is partisanship and factionalism; we have not yet seen any real reform to correct this. On the contrary, there is deepening pro-Hamas partisanship in the Gaza Strip and pro-Fatah factionalism in the West Bank; this applies not only to the security apparatuses but also other government ministries. Consequently, there is a great need for reform. So far, with the exception of a number of employees who were pensioned off, we have not seen genuine reform that would lead these institutions to take on a civil, nonpartisan nature. Tony Blair is tasked with rebuilding Palestinian institutions, but there’s a sense of déjà vu—we’ve been here so many times. Effective institutions cannot be built without removing the constraints of the occupation and the roadblocks. The security apparatus’s ability to do its job is very limited because of its inability to move freely; when security forces were deployed in Na
